Chuck Vs Christmas Yet to Come
by East Coast Captain
Summary: Team Bartowski and family gathers to celebrate the Holidays while a soldier contemplates the past, the present and the future. ONESHOT.


Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck or any of its characters. Just a few OCs.

**Authors Note:** Hello everyone. I wrote this to commemorate Christmas. I plan a full story on this next gen universe. This is a tribute to my late mother. My veteran beta, PJ Murphy, is in the cockpit. A big thank you to him and may all of us have a safe & wonderful holiday.

* * *

_December 17, 2044  
Kansas City, Missouri  
4:30 PM CST_

Scores of people piled in and out of the trains at Union Station. It was that time of the year again. Police were wrapping up their work as the day's calamity had ended just a short time ago.

Jesse Rembrandt Bartowski dusted off his dark blue pea coat. He locked eyes with one of the Ring agents he stopped, who glared back at him. Jesse gave him a wink, mocking the scumbag as he was put into a police vehicle. A familiar petite, elderly woman walked up and stood next to him. He gave a tiny smirk.

"Good afternoon, General Beckman-Montgomery," he said, giving salutations to the retired military woman with a bit of flourish. These days, she was a professor at the Academy in Colorado Springs, far flung from her days leading the charge on hunting and bringing justice to all manner of lowlife pieces of dirt.

The old woman gave him her patented scowl. "That's good work you did, Mr. Bartowski."

"I am to please, General. Coming back home has been quite the adventure. Although being presumed dead does save a lot on the paperwork."

"I want to finish the conversation we were having before this shitshow started."

Her voice was stern…even more than usual. It was understandable: she was the only one who knew who he really was. "I promised you before that I wouldn't tell a soul about who you really are, and I am not going back on that. But you have to promise me something, Jesse. While I appreciate what you did for us here, but you have to put the suit away and let the other fellow vanish. Let that loving boy who made people smile come back."

A tiny smile came to the general's face. "Or to put it in parlance your family would easily understand, the world needs Bruce Banner, not the other guy."

"Bruce doesn't exist anymore." There was a tone of finality and sadness in Jesse's voice. "I've done too may bad things in my life. I'm too far gone now."

Jesse looked off into the distance. He would have given anything to do what Beckman wanted, but there was no way now. His former personality had been burned away by those who captured him, replaced by this monster of a man.

"Jesse, look..." she put a slender hand on his shoulder when her phone rang. She saw Roan's name on the caller ID.

"I have to take this, Jesse," Beckman said in an apologetic voice. She gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Merry Christmas."

Beckman stepped away to take the call. Jesse looked over the area before turning and walking into a nearby bar. The bartender poured him a shot of Jack Daniels. Jesse put a $50 on the bar and motioned for the bottle, which the bartender left. As he began to dull the pain of the last few hours, everything came flooding back. The world had moved on without him since his 'death'. Even his family had moved on. His brother, Stephen, and his sister, Dana, had both gotten married in the time since. Stephen had been promoted to Lieutenant in the Chicago fire department and married Peggy Alberti, an emergency room nurse. Dana somehow managed to drag herself away from the FBI every now and again to start dating and was now married. To Jesse's best friend, of all people.

Jesse took a long exhale. He couldn't stop his eyes from welling up, and he downed another shot. Thomas Wolfe once said that you can't go home again. Jesse had learned that in the hardest way possible.

* * *

_December 24, 2044  
Platteville, Wisconsin  
1:49 PM CST_

Jesse observed with pride the cilantro, thyme, oregano, and other specialty spices growing in his makeshift greenhouse. Within a few days, they should be ready. The landscape architect threw his work gloves on the table before zipping his jacket and stepping outside.

"Good afternoon, Jesse," greeted Alex as she raked the backyard. They were getting ready for their traditional football game later tonight.

"Afternoon, Alex," he responded with a smile. "You know Uncle Casey is going to win again, right?"

Alex shook her head and laughed; her dad possessed the vigor of a man half his age.

"Hard to believe the Christmas before I shipped off, he was carrying that lanky kid I used to be on his shoulders." Jesse smiled at the memory for a moment before continuing towards the house.

"Hold up, Jesse. I wanted to talk to you about something." Alex put the rake down. Jesse turned around.

"What's up?"

"My girl…is smiling again. I think you being here is part of the reason why. I'm sure you know she's had a rough time this year. She eloped with a fireman from a house in the district next to hers over a year ago."

Her eyes welled up. "Bucky was a good man. He didn't deserve to die in that massive blaze in the Pilsen neighborhood last New Year's Eve. It took her a long time to recover from that. Really, she still is, even if she doesn't show it. So, I'm glad you're here to lend her some support."

Jesse nodded and gave a little smile. "Luna is strong; she has that Coburn blood flowing through her veins."

"Even strong people have their moments."

"You're right. But what truly defines you is whether you can get back up after one of those moments knocks you down. And nobody can ever question Luna being able to get back up."

"Thank you, Jesse," Alex said. She gave him a hug and went back to preparing the yard. Jesse went upstairs.

=0=0=

The colorful Bartowski house loomed ahead. The Queen Anne-style home was a tribute to the Victorian past…or so thought Esmeralda Jeanette Grimes as she parked her car in the gravel driveway. The oldest child of Morgan and Alex Grimes moved with her family to this town in the Midwest when she was eighteen to be near her grandfather. He owned a ranch a few miles away and still lived with her nana, Gertrude, her adoptive grandmother.

She got lucky; she managed to get a few days off from her job as a paramedic in Chicago. She exited her vehicle and unloaded the last of the ingredients from her vintage 2020 Mini Cooper, a gift from her dear grandad for her twentieth birthday, just before the war happened. She didn't see any other vehicles here. Her father and Chuck must have been out buying the Christmas tree. She hoped and prayed they had learned from last year's debacle.

"Thank you, sweetie," Sarah smiled, taking the last box from the younger woman.

"All in a day's work," she replied, giving the elder Bartowski a kiss on the cheek. "Dude in the farmer's market tried to rip me off. Don't buy at his stall ever again!"

She took a look around. "Where's Jesse?"

"Last I saw him, he went upstairs. He was in the greenhouse all day."

"Good. I need my sous chef!"

She had as much in common with Jesse as her father did with her grandfather: zero. He was a quiet, mild-mannered landscape architect while she was an abrasive and rambunctious paramedic with a mouth that would make sailors blush. But put together, combined with their mutual skills in the kitchen, they made a formidable duo. And certainly, Sarah appreciated how Luna stuck by his side since he came home last summer, despite her own life being in such turmoil.

=0=0=

Luna went up the stairs and heard the noise coming from one of the bedrooms. Nobody else was up there, so she figured it had to be Jesse.

"Hey, Bartowski! We have to prep the..."

Luna slipped inside the half-open door, and her breath hitched when she saw the scars on his left side and back. They looked like claw marks, but they were only half the problem as she spotted what looked like a healed gunshot wound near his kidney and another longer jagged scar on his right side. "Oh my God! What did those bastards do to you?"

"Nothing! It's nothing!" he exclaimed, quickly throwing on a gray Bowling Green State University sweatshirt.

"You…you were tortured," she concluded breathlessly.

"It's nothing…" he began. But he couldn't finish. He saw the guilt that overwhelmed her, and his stance softened. He knew her well enough that she was worried. The two had served together during the war. He had been captured while saving her entire division and was held in an unknown POW camp for nearly eight years.

But that was only half the story.

Jesse heard tales from his parents about an agent who once got his entire personality wiped for the purposes of being a double-agent. He thought it sounded crazy…until the same thing had to him when he was captured by an offshoot of the Ring.

But the process was faulty.

He was sent on a mission by this Ring offshoot to eliminate a group of agents from Germany's FIS who were working in tandem with the CIA. But there was something familiar to the cabin where they housed their communications. He didn't realize it at the time, but it was the same set of cabins the family vacationed in one Christmas when he was a child. That caused several triggers from his past to resurface, and he realized what he was about to do. He made the only decision he could to get himself and the agents out of this in one piece.

He turned the double-cross into a triple-cross.

He formulated a plan with the German agents to stage a massive firefight that he would 'win'. Communicating with his superiors, who still thought he was working for them, they set up a link between the German communications network and the network of the Ring offshoot. The data Jesse sent to them was fake. The data he received and turned over to the FIS was not.

By the time the Ring offshoot had figured it out, they were surrounded by the Austrian BMLV and the Italian AISE. Both intelligence agencies were quite happy to help in their capture, especially given the data the FIS provided them. Both intelligence agencies were in his debt. That appeared to be that until a few months later, the remnants of that group enacted their revenge against him in a tragic way. Jesse postponed his return to hunt down whatever was left of the offshoot.

That was three years ago. Cashing in on the favor, the intelligence agencies provided Jesse a location in the Caucasus Mountains to hide out and then 'leaked' the information to the CIA, permitting his rescue and his return to sanity. The government wanted to give him a Medal of Honor for his work, but Jesse, like his Uncle Casey, was never much for ribbons and medals.

Jesse took her hands into his larger ones and squeezed them, giving her a reassuring smile.

"I'll tell you everything," he promised, looking into those big, sparkling eyes of hers. _Except for the covert operative part, of course_, he thought to himself.

"EVERYTHING?" she insisted.

"Everything."

"Alright. Let's get to work."

She grinned and gave his cheeks a playful pinch, turning and skipping ahead of him. The two headed downstairs to the kitchen, where his mother had been setting up the food. Jesse's ingredients were already laid out on the countertop. He was making a mutton chop pie, one of the many recipes he picked up during his time abroad.

"OK, just let this bad boy sit for three hours," Sarah said to herself, setting the clock on the oven and having a look at the chicken roasting inside of it.

She turned to them. "Now you two, don't make a mess in my kitchen. I know how you two can get when you butt heads," she barked playfully.

"Don't look at me! I'm Felix; he's Oscar," Luna countered, pointing a finger at the guy next to her. "He's the slob around here." The mild-mannered agronomist just stuck his tongue out at her.

"Shit, I forgot something! Be right back!" she yelped, skipping out of the kitchen to retrieve the missing items from her car. Jesse smiled as he looked at her disappearing figure.

"You remember the time I was five and I huddled inside a playhouse?" Jesse asked his mother as he got started on his dish.

"Vividly. Your Aunt Ellie was with me, I was struggling to get you out and Ellie was laughing her butt off behind me." She groaned at the memory, but it was a good one.

"And you promised dad would build me one." Jesse chuckled at how much simpler life was back then. When he was a kid, things seemed so perfect. the days were endless, and the sun always shining. "It's memories like that which kept me going,"

Sarah's eyes softened. Her boy had finally come back home, and that was all that mattered.

She turned and wrapped her arms around her youngest son. "You're here. That's what counts," she whispered.

"Love you, Mom," Jesse said softly, holding her tightly.

**_For Mom_**

* * *

_CAST_

_Zachary Levi - Jesse Bartowski_

_Brianna Brown __\- Luna Grimes _

_Bonita Friedericy - Diane Beckman-Montgomery_

_Yvonne Strahovski - Sarah Bartowski_

_Mekenna Melvin - Alex Grimes_


End file.
